


take an angel by the wings

by ytka_hjonkkk



Series: mcyt fics :0 [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Origin SMP, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blaze Jack Manifold, Deutsch | German, Fluff, Gen, Ghostbur, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, LITERALLY, Merling Niki, Origin Smp - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shulker Tubbo, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Unethical Experimentation, how the hell do i tag, the first chapter is straight up just jack thinking tommys an alien ngl, tommy is like a pheonix sorta, tommyinnit speaks german, uh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:02:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29559507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ytka_hjonkkk/pseuds/ytka_hjonkkk
Summary: origin smp fic :)))tommy is not human. he used to be an avian, an avian with moonlight wings and feathers that can give infinite lives. now, he has no wings at all.running away from where his wings were ripped from him, he finds new places, ne friends, and maybe they can help him be okay again.title from 'angel by the wings' by sia
Relationships: Jack Manifold & Niki | Nihachu & Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Jack Manifold & TommyInnit, Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, niki nihachu & tommyinnit
Series: mcyt fics :0 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120814
Comments: 12
Kudos: 142





	take an angel by the wings

**Author's Note:**

> uhh bear w me idfk what what im doing
> 
> the first bit of this is weird as hell so sort of just ignore that idk why i wrote it its just explaining shit ig so just bear w it till the real paragraphs start
> 
> tw for this chapter is like suffocating literally to death (dw he comes back) and sort of religion ish and implied death? sorta?
> 
> also he swears cause its tommy

tommy liked to sleep a lot. 

he was a firm believer in the concept of comparmentalising- he thought that by sleeping as often as he did, he was probably taking that compartment and shoving it far, far underground. 

he found that didn’t bother him.

  
  
  
  
  


tommy has to sleep up high. 

he remembered when he didn't, one time at the facility, when they didn't know how to take care of him yet. 

(did they ever figure it out?)

to be fair, he hadn’t known either. he hadn’t even known about that drawback of his lifestyle, having only ever slept atop his mountain home anyway, only straying for short expeditions here and there. 

still, suffocating to death a half dozen times in a row was one hell of a way to find out. 

tommy towers high before he sleeps, now.

  
  
  
  
  


he remembered a time when he wasn't so light, a time when the only reason he fell to the ground so slow was the wings on his back. 

oh, his wings. 

he didn’t half miss his wings.

he had always been light-footed and jumpy, but by this point he was different, a little too much of each. 

he jumps at the swish of a branch, taking a split second too long to fall. he flinches at the sound of nothing at all, and is swept away by the wind far too easily. it would be barely noticeable if you didn't look, and he planned to keep it that way- stay on the ground, tommy. stay on the ground, and that way you can be human. if you don't die, or fall, you don't have to be who the universe says you are. 

(he does)

(he can't escape who he is)

(was?)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


the woods were quiet, late at night. they were quiet and dark and sometimes tommy thought the blackness was corporeal, because it twisted around him in such a way that he couldn’t quite believe it was simply a lack of something. it was too  _ there _ . 

he liked to hum tunes under his breath, sing them in his native language that seems harsh to a foreigner but could be so incredibly soft from the right person. he didn’t speak to the villagers much when he lived up high, stayed in his family with his father and his brother, but that language was the first he ever learnt, before the murder and the capture and the bloodshed. so he still spoke it, as often as he could. 

he walked quietly, as light on his feet as ever, pushing through the stifling ropes of darkness with a steely resolve. he was going to find a place to live soon, he swore by it. he was far enough away now that they would never find him. he wasn’t sure they would bother, anymore- he was probably no use to them without the twin flames his back. still, no harm in being careful.

the song in his throat was one of his favourites, an upbeat one that he didn’t remember many of the lyrics to but loved nonetheless. he supposed he would never find the lyrics, now. there probably weren’t any avians or deutsch speakers round here to tell him. 

still, he muttered the chorus on repeat under his breath. 

“neun und neunzig, luftballons-” abruptly, his foot snagged on a branch hidden under a sheet of black and he felt his balance falter before drifting to the ground. 

he sighed and pressed his hands down in the underbrush. it was more of an inconvenience than anything, immune to fall damage as he was, but he still got dirty and it slowed him down. 

his hand fell in a patch of liquid. 

tommy froze. 

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. 

was it water? was it blood? was it something entirely more sinister?

he didn’t give himself time to find out, before scrambling to his feet and straight up legging it. the rough branches that lay close to the floor scratched against his legs, ripping his ratty jeans further, but he didn’t feel it. he needed to get out into the open, somewhere where he could see the moon and she could see him. 

is it possible for nothing to close in on you? if it was, that’s what it felt like to tommy. walls of obsidian inkiness pressing on either side of his head, crushing his skull and bleeding him out. 

he felt like he was back in his first dungeon in the facility, kept underground and his own lungs fighting against him. squeezing themselves raw until the same blackness took him over, again and again and again. 

he needed clara. 

the boy knew he was running fast, he always could. even in his village up high, he was quick on his feet compared to others, being able to angle his wings in such a way that left them aerodynamic. but he had figured out a long time ago that the moon smiled on people like him, people with silver feathers and so many lives that they rivalled the gods themselves. and the moon helped him, sending him whispers of wind to push him along and lighting up the way when he needed it most. but would she come, now he had lost his light?

all of a sudden, when it felt that maybe he would have to allow the darkness in, have another go once the sun rose, an opening broke in the canopy, and a shard of light broke through. he gasped in relief, his lungs suddenly released from their iron constraints, and he sent a silent thanks up to clara. 

he felt the smile she gave him in return. 

running quicker, now able to see the uneven floor before stumbling in blind, tommy fell out of the woods startlingly quickly. a small field lay before him, tapering off into a long coastline that stretched as far as he could see. a river lay to his left, that was wide and long, flowing slow and steady into the sea (lake?) in front of him. 

he let out a breath, and fell backwards to lie on the ground. floating softly down onto the grass, he smiled up at the sky. 

it wasn’t particularly light, the moonlight that was reflecting off the water not doing much for the surroundings, but the smattering of stars above him felt like a hug. the viscous blackness had fallen away, staying in the confines of the trees, too afraid to venture past the imposing line of grass to the ground where the moon smiled. 

lots of things were scared of the moon, he found. not people, as such- he hadn’t met many of those- but things that were borne of darkness, things that crept around in the shadows of the night and were ancient enough that even he didn’t have the words to describe them. those kinds of things shrunk away from her light, stayed in the safety of anonymity. 

many of those things just ceased to be in the gaze of the sun, or burnt in her fiery embrace. 

that was a lot less terrifying than what clara would do if she saw them hurting a being she favoured. 

with that thought in mind, he felt his muscles relax into the grass (was it really that soft, or was it his tired brain speaking?) and his eyelids grow heavy. 

maybe a part of him yelled,  _ no _ ,  _ stop, this is wrong!  _ he blamed not listening on his lethargy, and the world fell away to a blissful black. 

  
  


***

  
  


when jack woke up that morning, he was prepared for another totally ordinary day. it was raining at daybreak, of course it was- just his luck- so he stayed inside and read a book for a few hours till it cleared up. it was nice, really. he was planning on having a chat with niki and tubbo that day, but not until midafternoon-ish, so he had time to take a stroll and clear his mind. 

it was perfectly lovely, for a bit. it was a sunny day, and there was a distinct lack of mobs out, besides a few sheep. 

he liked the sun. he thought the sun liked him, too. why else would she bless the boy like she had? it might be superstitious of him- hell, he had never been the religious type- but sometimes he felt like she made him stronger, somehow better in and of himself. 

it made no sense, he knew that. but at night time, he just felt stunted, and at day time, much the opposite. sometimes, he felt more at home basking in the sunlight than he did in his actual home in the nether. so really, what other logical conclusion could he come to? i mean, yeah, he could just be going mental, but he really didn’t want to think about that. 

gods it was, then. 

the walk was calm, pretty. idyllic, almost. things like that rarely lasted long, in jack's general and fairly extensive experiences of bad luck. usually, it would end up raining (not snowing, though. never round here. fucking global warming, man), or one time a fucking seagull attacked him for absolutely no reason. honestly, those things were so unnecessarily spiteful. this time, however, it seemed to be going fairly well, and it already rained that morning, so naturally it wouldn't rain again. probably.

all of a sudden, something caught his eye in the grass. 

a hand. a fucking disembodied hand. maybe?

upon closer inspection, it became apparent that the hand was, in fact, attached to a body.

said body was strange, to say the least. it belonged to a boy, maybe around jack’s own age, who was laying face down on the ground. the boy’s hair was pale, almost white-blond, with a silvery sheen to it that must have been dyed, and he was wearing tattered clothes that were quite positively coated in dirt. he wasn’t wearing shoes, and his feet were fairly torn up and just a little bit bloody. but in all honesty, jack just felt bad for the state of the pale jeans he was wearing. 

come to think of it, the boy himself was looking worryingly pale. all of him, actually. 

frowning, jack angled his foot and kicked the boy lightly. no response. he kicked him again, pushing the boy over till he fell not so gracefully onto his back. 

seeing the kid’s face, he recoiled. it was  _ so  _ pale. gods, it was like- like-

like the boy was dead. 

oh, christ. 

was there a dead body on his lawn?

this was not good. 

he stared for a second longer, almost daring the boy to wake up. pleading, maybe. when it became apparent he wasn’t about to, jack felt like he was going to cry. 

“oh, jesus fucking christ,” he whispered, looking desperately at the prone form in his garden, “wake up, man.” 

he didn’t. 

“fuck!” he yelled, spinning around on his heel and taking a few steps away before stopping. he had never seen a dead body before. it was rather anticlimactic, if he was being honest. just very stressful and  _ very  _ difficult to explain. maybe it was the lack of wounds, but the boy on the floor didn’t feel like the kind of dead body that would rot in a grave in the ground. he was more the kind of dead body you’d display, or something. jack didn't know. he wasn’t exactly an expert on dead bodies. obviously. who was, and not a perv?

suddenly, a strangled gasp erupted behind him. he whipped around, ready to explain the dead boy on his lawn away to whoever had turned up, but was certainly not expecting the boy on the lawn to be sitting up, quite pointedly not looking very dead anymore. the colour he had previously been lacking had apparently rushed back, and he looked healthy as anything. 

the boy’s eyes were blown wide as noticed jack, staring at him in shock and apparently not breathing. the eyes fixed on him were pale, the kind of pale grey that was so light it looked silver. if jack didn't know better, he'd say the kid's eyes were just straight up white. he did know better, though. that would be weird. although, what part of turning up dead on some poor guy's lawn wasn't weird?

well, not dead. probably.

the boy wasn’t breathing. he hadn’t breathed in a while, actually. that was worrying. was this a panic attack? was jack witnessing his first panic attack? oh lord almighty, he was not equipped to deal with this. 

“hey, mate,” the boy flinched as jack spoke, still not breathing. “can you breathe right now? you don’t need to like, talk, or anything, but i think- i think breathing would be, uh, pogchamp?”

the boy shook his head frantically, bringing his hands up to his throat and grasping at it in desperation. he looked so scared, oh god. 

“can’t-” the boy spoke, voice sounding painfully cracked. jack didn’t quite think that counted as speaking, more a gasp, but still. it got his point across. it was sort of like when you try to sing while breathing inwards, and you can just about make out what they’re saying. why did jack think that, right now? christ, literally anybody other than him would be better equipped to deal with this.

“that’s normal man, you’re panicking, it’s fine-” he tried to reassure, but was cut off by the boy reaching forward and grabbing his arm in an iron grip that was entirely too strong for a man of his stature. still shaking his head, the boy stared at him while his other hand waved around in the air, gesturing vaguely upwards. “up. high, up.” the boy croaked out again, before promptly passing out. 

jack stared. 

his wrist was released now, at least. the kid held onto him really  _ bloody  _ tight, fucking hell. there was, like, a mark on him, for christ’s sake! 

but on the other hand, the boy couldn’t breathe, and was looking suspiciously dead again. 

  1. what did up mean? what was up?



was the boy an alien, or something? was jack in some shitty e.t knockoff? oh christ, he was, wasn’t he? he was going to have to run away from alien experiment people or something. 

the boy was still on the floor. 

he didn’t  _ look  _ like an alien. although, an alien wouldn’t exactly want to look like one, would they? and what would an alien even look like, in a place with hybrids left right and centre? hell, jack himself didn’t look human- it wouldn’t be hard to pass as a not-alien. he could just pretend to be some dodgy hybrid or something. 

do aliens have spaceships? jack reckoned they did. aliens would probably just come get their missing alien, wouldn’t they? they would be perfectly capable, if they had spaceships. 

okay, he had a plan. 

step 1: get the boy up high. 

step 2: hope the aliens came to get him. 

this one was gonna be hard to explain if it didn’t work out. 

  
  


***

  
  


tommy came to all at once, jerking up and gulping in the air around him. oh god, the sweet, sweet air. it was so fucking good, clara above. 

"lieber gott," he gasped, forgetting all his training for a second, "heilige scheiße."

a full body shudder overtook him as he thought back to earlier, to dying twice and the life being  _ choked out of him  _ by his own shitty bird instincts and the unbearable tightness on his throat and the stale stupid fuckery of the air and the boy he couldn't even  _ fucking  _ speak to and-

wait. 

the boy. 

scrambling to his feet, he wobbled slightly as he spun around on the ball of his foot. eyes catching on the boy staring at him, he froze in a half crouch that looked undeniably strange. they both looked at each other for a second, before tommy straightened up and opened his mouth to speak. 

“uh-”

“are you an alien?” he was cut off by the boy’s rushed question, said almost breathlessly. 

tommy frowned. was he an alien? he didn’t look that weird, or too different from the people at the facility or at the bottom of the mountain, he didn’t think. if anything, the boy in front of him was stranger looking, with his hair quite literally on fire (there wasn’t much of it, honestly. he couldn’t blame the boy for shaving it though- having fire on your head would probably get annoying after a while) and patches of deep red magma spanning across most of his visible skin. the only area that seemed entirely unaffected was his face, but even his eyes seemed to glow fiery, even in the brightness of the day. 

if tommy had to guess, he’d probably say a blaze or magma cube hybrid. he had never met either of them, but the books were fairly telling. 

the boy was still staring at him. 

“...no?” tommy said, phrasing it far too much like a question. “i’m… human. yeah. that’s me, i’m human.” 

the fire guy raised a deep red eyebrow. 

“how come you couldn’t breathe our atmosphere, then? and how come you look so weird? and how come you spoke in alien language just then?” 

tommy wrinkled his nose. 

“okay, first of all, rude. i am not weird looking!” the guy raised his other eyebrow and moved to reply, but tommy cut him off with a glare. “i am perfectly normal looking. not my fault i don’t tan easy!” 

the boy hummed disdainfully, looking at him with obvious doubt in his eyes. 

“and i can breathe your atmosphere, clearly. what do you think i’m doing right now?” 

“only because we’re on top of a mountain right now! you’re probably just closer to your alien force field or something.” there was a sneer in the boy’s words, and tommy narrowed his eyes. what a prick. 

“i am not an alien! i just can’t sleep on the floor, man.” 

“why not?” 

“i dunno! it’s just how it is.”

if it was possible, the boy narrowed his eyes even more. “are you sure you aren’t a hybrid?”

tommy shifted uncomfortably. “yeah. yeah, no, i’m just human.” 

“where you from, then?” 

“up north. near the avian commune up high.”

“what avian commune?” 

tommy choked. of course he didn’t know the avian commune. nobody used to know about the avian commune except the people in it, and now it was gone, it was probably supposed to stay a secret forever. 

“uh.” he started. “not there. anymore. uh.”

the boy’s eyes widened in realisation and he quickly backtracked. 

“oh, i’m so sorry, dude. is that why you’re here? to get away?” tommy didn’t have the heart to tell him most villages up north had been destroyed years ago, so he just nodded, staring at the ground. “jesus christ, man. i didn’t mean to be rude.”

“it’s fine.”

“it isn’t, really. do you want to, like, stay round here then? meet some of my mates?” 

tommy looked up in shock. 

“you want me to stay? you just had to lug me up a mountain, mate. i don’t want to cause trouble.” 

the boy waved his hand dismissively, shaking his head. 

“no worries, man. niki and wilbur are getting a bit fucking irritating for me and tubbo, anyway,” he said with a laugh, and tommy stared at him blankly. “oh, sorry. i’m jack manifold. uh, i’m blaze, clearly. niki is merling, tubbo is shulker and wilbur is phantom. uh. yeah. what’s your name?” 

“tommy,” tommy said, smiling. “human.”

he is not human. 

jack beams. “cool! nice to meet you, tommy.”

it doesn’t matter. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ahah there u go 
> 
> kudos and comments are pogchamp if you want


End file.
